Absolute Uncertainty
by Witchy Bee
Summary: Cave Johnson/Caroline, before life and its lemons returned with a vengeance.
1. Absolute Uncertainty

**A/N:** My take on pre-Portal events. Mostly Caroline/Cave fluff and such. Fear not, readers of my other stories, new chapters are on their way. It's summer now so I have more time, except when I'm in New York for a week, but more on that later. Review?

)O(

"Caroline, can you take Table 5's order for me?" The evening was in full swing now.

"Sure, Mimi, I'm on it." the dark-haired waitress replied, rushing out of the stuffy kitchen and through the crowded diner until she reached the table in the corner. A rather handsome blond man was seated there. Caroline's heart skipped a beat when she realized who he was. Cave Johnson, the larger than life, self-made man of science who had amassed his fortune from selling shower curtains to most of the military and now owned a salt mine here in Michigan which he used to house the new Aperture Science facility.

Who wasn't in awe of the way he made up his own rules? She'd heard that astronauts, war heroes, and even Olympians came from across the country just to see Aperture in action and get a chance to participate in the groundbreaking research that went on there. The entirety of Black Mesa, rivaled by one man's ambition.

"Can I take your order?" she prompted.

'Yes," Cave Johnson said, looking at the menu and then at her. "What do you recommend?"

"Oh, I don't know, sir," Caroline felt all the blood in her body gather in her cheeks. "Anything you want."

"I want to know what you want."

_I want my shift to be over._"The steak is very good." she blurted out.

"Sounds great," he smiled, handing her the menu.

"H-How would you like it cooked?" Caroline stumbled over her words like a starry-eyed schoolgirl. She was better than this. _Get a grip, girl!_

"Hmm...I'll go with...rare," Then he smiled again. "And to drink...lemonade." That surprised her. She figured he was the type who would have hard liquor with his steak. Still, she did not comment on it, but simply scurried away to place the order.

He ate everything on his plate. When Caroline returned to the table to clean it and collect her tip, she couldn't believe her eyes. She counted it again and again. It was too much money. Surely there must have been some mistake. What other logical explanation was there?

Caroline ran out the door after him, desperate to give the hundred dollar bills back. This needed to be put right.

"Sir!" she called loudly. It was raining but he still heard her. Cave Johnson turned around slowly, smiling. She stopped, forcing the cash into his hands without letting him say a word. Then she turned, out of breath not to mention embarrassed, and started walking toward the diner.

"Wait," Caroline froze at the sound of his voice. "You forgot something."

He slipped the money back into her palm and closed her hand around it. She didn't know what to say. "Sir, I...I can't accept this. I'm sorry, but I couldn't possibly...It's too much." It was more than she made in a month.

"I want you to have it." Cave Johnson insisted. Then he left her standing there in the rain, not knowing where to go next or what to do. She didn't know anything anymore.

)O(

By mid-morning the following day, her head was back in order again. Cave Johnson's apparent motiveless generosity was a mystery best left unsolved, she figured. The money would go toward rent, maybe something special for herself, too. No reason to question it further. Besides, the breakfast rush was well underway and she had work to do.

That's when she saw him.

It took all her will to appear aloof as she approached his table.

"Just coffee, thanks." Cave Johnson gave her that magnificent smile again. "No cream or sugar."

Caroline blinked. "Are you certain that's all you want, sir? Have you eaten today?" His hesitance to respond was all the answer she needed.

"I'm a busy man." he finally said.

"I'll be right back." Caroline barged into the kitchen purposefully and began making him a bacon and egg sandwich. Sometimes men were stupid. They didn't always know what they needed, but a woman did. That's what her mother had always said.

"What's this?" Cave asked when she set the plate in front of him along with the coffee he'd ordered.

"It's breakfast, sir," Caroline replied. "The most important meal of the day."

He devoured the whole thing and complimented her repeatedly, which caused her to blush. So much for remaining aloof. Oh no, what if he tried to pay a ridiculous amount of money again? She might just die!

"It was nothing, sir, really."

"So modest," Cave observed, sipping his coffee. "Tell me, why is a pretty girl like you working in a place like this?" _Why is a rich man like you eating in a place like this?_

"It pays the bills," she explained, shrugging. "I was a secretary for a while."

"You don't say..." He suddenly looked thoughtful. "You know, I can tell you're not just a pretty face. You're smart, too. I bet you have tons of great ideas in that head of yours. You probably know who I am, but what's your name?"

"I'm Caroline, sir..." She wasn't sure where this was going.

"Well, Caroline," Cave Johnson smiled and took her hand. "Have you ever considered a career in science?"


	2. Orderly Chaos

This was absurd, of course. She hadn't really done science since high school.

"So he just...offered you a job?"

"I'm telling you, Mimi, that's exactly what happened." Caroline nodded but did not look away from the table she was cleaning. They had to get this place spotless before they could close up for the night and go home. That was enough motivation for them. However, if Cave's proposition was genuine instead of a mere act of pity, she may never have to do this again.

"I know, and I'm happy for you, I really am," Mimi sighed. "But...usually when things sound too good to be true, they are."

"What are you trying to say?"

"I just don't want you to get hurt, Caroline."

This upset Caroline. Why couldn't her friend simply support her for once? Finally, something wonderful was happening to her and Mimi had to scare her away from it.

"I'm only going to be his assistant. It's not rocket science. But maybe someday we will go to the moon, and I'll get to have a small part in that. Let me have this, can't you?"

"So you're going to accept the offer?"

Suddenly, she knew that whatever came to be as a result of working for Aperture Science, at least Caroline would help move humanity forward in some tiny way. There was something more fulfilling about that than waitressing. It was worth the risk.

The next time Aperture's CEO came into the diner, she quit her job and never looked back.

)O(

"I'm glad you decided to give science a chance, Caroline," Cave Johnson said as she stepped out of the limo. "I think you're going to feel right at home here."

"This really wasn't necessary, sir." Caroline gestured to the luxurious car that had been parked outside her apartment building this morning, waiting for her.

"We spare no expense for our valued employees. Besides, the facility's a bit tricky to find on your own. Science requires complete concentration and the city tends to distract people." All she could do was nod in agreement. "Now, let me give you the grand tour!"

Caroline followed her new boss and listened attentively as he explained that her duties here would consist of more than just making coffee and answering phones. The elevator moved perpetually downward.

"But sir, I don't know anything about science..."

"That's all right, Caroline, neither do I, really." Cave put a hand on her shoulder. "I'm a businessman, and you're a lady with a practical mind. That's why I hired you. The lab boys invent whatever I come up with, and you're gonna help me."

A chance to prove that her thoughts were worth something? That didn't sound too bad.

"Yes, sir."

The elevator finally rested on solid earth and its doors opened, revealing a warm room with comfortable-looking chairs. There were awards and such framed on the walls, including a newspaper from the day Cave Johnson purchased the salt mine and began construction of this very facility. It had been front page news.

"This is just our waiting area. You won't have much reason to come here," he said, then she noticed this gleam in his eye. "Would you like to see where the science happens?"

"Yes, sir!" Caroline smiled excitedly, for it was impossible not to be excited when Cave Johnson talked about science. He laughed while leading her into another room, but this one was vast and brightly lit with so much life to it. Her eyes couldn't take everything in all at once no matter how hard she tried. The previous night's lack of sleep didn't help.

All around her was a whirl of activity. People clad in white lab coats and orange jumpsuits mingled on their respective paths, aided by colored lines painted on the floor that they all seemed to be familiar with. High above her, countless clear tubes crisscrossed each other in a sort of tangled transportation system for various apparatus, although she couldn't quite see it clearly. But whatever it was, it traveled at remarkably high speeds. And above that, the faintest traces of real sunlight attempted to pour in. That's when she realized just how far beneath the ground they actually were.

"This, Caroline, is the heart of Aperture!" Cave announced proudly. _Then those tubes must be its arteries_, she thought. "Soon I'll show you where our engineers work, and where we test all our products before releasing them to the public. Safety is important. Oh, that reminds me, the bean counters said they have some form or contract for you to sign...It's probably not important..."

Caroline tried to listen attentively, but she was too overwhelmed by everything here in the heart of Aperture.

She had stepped into the future.


	3. Luminosity

**A/N:** Apologies for the delay. I'd also like to thank you all for your interest in my little tale.

)O(

Mr. Johnson was eager to show her around the massive facility. It's still expanding all the time, he said, to accommodate more labs and test chambers. Yes, Aperture had come a long way from manufacturing shower curtains, it seemed. Caroline thought it would only be a matter of time before they were engineering flying cars and teleporters. In fact, Cave smirked when she mentioned this, that day might come sooner than she imagined.

The Aperture Science Quantum Tunneling Device was an invention centuries ahead of its time. Based on the principle of quantum physics, the idea that something or someone could indeed be in two places at once despite how paradoxical that sounded, it allowed a person to step through one portal and out another wherever said portal was placed. The actual blueprints themselves made little sense to her. Caroline was only a high school graduate, certainly not a physicist. Something about black holes and quantum particles, forces opposing each other in perfect balance in order to keep all one's cells in the right place.

It was the stuff of parallel universes, all condensed into a simple black backpack. Convenient, yes, but with further testing the device could be modified to an even more compact size.

"Could it be used as a weapon?" she asked when shown the blueprints of what looked like a sort of gun with a miniature black hole spinning in the center.

"Why not? The military loves me 'cause of all the shower curtains I've sold 'em," Cave replied. "Besides, everyone's gonna want one of these babies. We just gotta make sure Black Mesa doesn't get their filthy hands on 'em first. So you have to promise me this little secret won't leave the company, got it?"

'Yes, sir."

"Look at me, Caroline," She raised her head to meet his eyes, and suddenly her mouth went dry. "Promise?"

"Yes, sir."

"That's a good girl."

)O(

The work was easy, almost too easy. Caroline already knew how to make coffee from her time as a waitress, and she'd learned how to file while working as a receptionist before that. Perhaps she had expected something a bit more challenging. It was silly, of course. Cave had said he needed an assistant that's just what she was. How could she complain about doing a job she agreed to do, exactly what she'd been hired for? Caroline should consider herself lucky to work here at all.

And yet...Aperture developed wonders everyday, like the Quantum Tunneling Device. How she longed to be a bigger part of that. Caroline had a passion for the unknown. Science promised to answer all of man's burning questions, even take them to the moon one day. That was no small promise to live up to.

She brought Mr. Johnson his coffee that morning just like any other. Maybe this was all she had to contribute to science...

"Are you happy here, Caroline?" he asked casually, but the question sent her mind to screeching halt.

"Very much so, sir."

"Are you sure?" He knew she wasn't being entirely truthful; she wouldn't look him in the eye. "You know I hired you for your honesty, not because you can brew a damn fine cup of coffee, which you can. But almost anyone can do that. Hell, we have a machine for that. I bet I could get my engineers to invent a robot to bring me the coffee when it's ready, too, but I digress." He paused to take a sip. He spoke lightly, but Caroline was frowning. "So, you're unhappy."

"It's nothing you did, sir. You have been so good to me, too good, in fact. I can never repay-" Cave gestured for her to go on. "I just think that maybe I can offer this company more than coffee."

He nodded, sliding a stack of papers off his desk to give Caroline his full attention. It was always hard to think straight when he looked at her like that.

"All right," Mr. Johnson said slowly. "Tell me your ideas."

"Well..." She'd had a lot of time to think about this, but now that her boss was actually listening, she couldn't get the words out eloquently. "I've been researching psychological experiments having to do with the brain's response to loneliness." As she spoke, it got easier. "I think...maybe if we isolated subjects from any human contact for a day or two, then ran them through a series of tests with a special object to aid them, like...a box or something, they may project their need for companionship onto that object...and they would still have to solve a regular test, so it would be like...double the science."

"Double the science..." Cave repeated. Caroline watched as a smile spread across his lips. "That's genius! My god, why haven't you been designing tests this whole time? I'll get the lab boys working on it immediately, and if you have any more ideas in that brainy head of yours, just let me know."

Caroline blushed. "Yes, sir."

"Promise?"

"I promise, sir."

)O(

This wasn't she'd intended at all. It was all here in the notes Caroline was instructed to type up and file away. Some had to be sent to the legal division for further investigation. What exactly that entailed, she didn't know.

There were reports of test subjects suffering hallucinations, paranoia, delusions, irrational or even behavior, as a result of contact with the cube. They claimed it spoke to them. One man actually stabbed himself and said the companion cube had done it. He swore it had been threatening him since the beginning. It didn't make since; the cube was supposed to be thought of as their friend, not their enemy.

How could a cube with hearts on it possibly harm anyone?

It didn't help that the engineers decided to add another requirement to the test: incinerating the companion cube. Most subjects cried for hours before finally doing as they were told. Caroline was horrified but fascinated by these results. Cave couldn't be happier. No one had ever done science like this. Maybe there was a good reason for that.

She told herself this was progress. It was what she'd wanted, to be valued. Her opinions meant something for once. Besides, they knew the risks when they signed up, and Mr. Johnson was proud of her. Caroline could not put a price on that, not even in human lives.


End file.
